Nathalia Holt — science writer, microbiologist and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars” — tells the inspiring stories of NASA’s earliest women scientists and mathematicians.

Long description:

Nathalia Holt is the author of “Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars” and “Cured: The People Who Defeated HIV” and a former fellow at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Time and Popular Science.

In the 1940s and 50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they didn’t turn to male graduates. Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites and made the exploration of the solar system possible.

For the first time, “Rise of the Rocket Girls” tells the stories of these women — known as “human computers” — who broke the boundaries of both gender and science. Based on extensive research and interviews with all the living members of the team, “Rise of the Rocket Girls” offers a unique perspective on the role of women in science: both where we’ve been, and the far reaches of space to which we’re heading.